Early Voting Key To Romney's Delegate Victories

Once-meaningful distinctions between early voting, voting-by-mail, and absentee ballots are being erased as 32 states now offer voters the chance to cast their ballot before Election Day without a justifying excuse (as traditional absentee balloting required).

Romney’s canny and competent handling of these varied early-voting processes this year has helped him accumulate a seemingly insurmountable lead in delegates. He is running the only modern, professional campaign against a field of amateurs gasping to keep up, and nowhere is that advantage more evident than in his mastery of early voting. Capitalizing on early-voting procedures demands formidable investment up front in the service of later savings.

Yet Romney has likely already reaped enough gains from mastering the system in earlier states to ensure he is the only Republican who could enter the Tampa convention in August with enough delegates to become the nominee. “If you look at Gingrich and Santorum, who spent their political careers in the Nineties, they’re dinosaurs to the new way of campaigning,” says Mann. “Romney was much better prepared going into 2012 for how people vote today.”